Tag Archives: poetry prompts

Hello, all. I think I made a rash statement to the effect I would post a picture and keep mum, leaving all possibilities to you. Do you know how hard that is?!

I found this on Pinterest without title or artist, for which I apologise. Let’s see what you do with it (this is killing me). I will say that whatever results, the image is your spark and doesn’t have to be a part of the poem; or, you can focus on one part of the image and ignore the rest.

I will see you Thursday for links and things and next Tuesday for yet another image prompt, one where I can go back to directing.

Hello, all. I’ve been having far too much fun with my two advent calendars and NORAD’s Santa tracker and it’s only December 1st. We did not have an image during November and December is a rather hysterical month, so I may give images every week. We’ll see how it goes.

by Mary Cassatt

This image caught my eye as I was looking through my collection. You may stop reading right now and write your poem, or read further, first.

So, why does this give me pause? I read a print newspaper and Skip reads his news online. I tried online once and realised I missed too much serendipitous news because I chose amongst the headlines presented. With a print newspaper, I see everything and with an article right there, when I pause to glance, my eye starts reading down the column or picks up on a paragraph. I read so much more than I do online. Besides, I like turning pages, the sound of the paper, the smell of newsprint (not that the ink smells as it used to), the context of the whole.

Do you get your news in swaths or slices? How do you go about it? You can write directly to this image or follow what my own meanderings may have begun. If you follow my path, you can write about how you found out a specific piece of news, or you can write about how you get your news, in general. Go where your mind takes you.

Hello, everyone. We have lovely autumn weather (for San Antonio). I’m in a long sleeved shirt, three layers, and my wooly socks. Yay! With coffee in hand let us peruse. Today’s exercise is adapted from Jack Penha’s adaptation of Richard Jackson’s “five easy pieces” from The Practice of Poetry.

 Think of people you know well. – for the sake of the exercise, you need to have someone you can easily visualise. Pick someone.

 Imagine a place where you can picture the person. This does not have to be a place the person has been.

Whether you are a NaNoWriMo-er or poet, we are going to write five sentences taking us through the four modes of writing: description, narration, reverie, and dialogue.

1. Describe the person’s hand or hands in one sentence.

Description takes place in no time; i.e. time stands still for description. So do not let that hand or those hands move. You can describe what they look like or how they are poised or where they lie. But time in description does not move.

2. Narrate something she does with her hands, in one sentence.

Narration takes place over time. That’s what distinguishes it from description. So let time move. Describe the person eating a crab, or shaving, or tending to a plant.

3. Reverie takes place in the mind of a character or a narrator.

Your person is thinking of something that, although he may not know it, is a symbol for something he experienced in the past. Or something he dreams of experiencing in the future. In one sentence, write about the metaphor in the person’s mind–without telling us what it stands for. Indeed, you do not even need to know what it stands for.

4. These next two are examples of dialogue—the rhetorical mode of drama.

a. (probably relevant to numbers two and three above,) Write the question you would love to ask this person. Just the question—as a sentence. Not, I would love to ask. Just the question. As if it were in quotation marks.

b. The person looks up or toward you, notices you there, gives an answer that suggests she didn’t entirely hear or understand your question. One sentence.

NaNos, you can stop there or expand on what you started. Poets, find the poem in your sentences. Feel free to make changes—small or radical—that seem to make it a better poem. Feel free to leave out bits.

I don’t usually show examples, but this exercise might cause furrowed brows, so here’s my take:

1] Her hands are translucent with age, her skin leafy to the touch.

2] Spidery fingers poke the earth around the bottom of the plant.

3] Once a deep purple, now faded to pale blue, veins like spikes of delphinium.

4] It’s cold; are you coming in?

The weather has changed; I must prepare the bonsai.

The poem:

Her Hands

Spider fingers
poke the earth
around the bonsai’s base.

Once a deep purple,
now faded
to pale blue,
veins like spikes
of delphinium,

hands translucent with age,
her skin leafy to the touch.

Go forth and write and I will see you again, Thursday for links and then, my friends, not for a week. My husband, having decided we need a break, booked us into a hotel in New Orleans. Who am I to argue?

listening to a medley of The Scottish Fight Song and Amazing Grace — I found it so uplifting to watch the video of this being played that the heck with the prompt,here’s a link, go watch and listen

Okay, okay and a prompt, but I’m going to take breaks to go back and watch the cellist. Hi, everyone. Settling in NaNoWriMo-ers? Have your plan in hand? For those new to Wordgathering, in the past year, I spend November talking to the novel writers. Sometimes I will have a prompt they can work on within their novel; sometimes I will discuss things to keep in mind. I always have a suggestion for the poets.

Some of you will be leaping in for the first time. Several of you have been participating for years. A few of you will be using the time to revise a novel in hand. No matter which, somewhere in your brain you’ll need to be conscious of the structure of the whole, and within the whole, each chapter. The same goes for poetry, but unless we are writing epics, we have a much smaller area within which to work and only one turn to consider. For both, there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. The key component is the turn, the moment when the story stops moving forward, but instead heads to a resolution.

In a novel, there are many mini-turns because there are sub-plots. If you are panicking about the novel as a whole, focus on the sub-plots. As in poetry, the first draft is getting stuff down on paper. It’s not writing until the revision happens (except for one or two people who have a gift — we aren’t sure we are speaking to them). For today, be conscious of the forward movement of your narrative, and thinking of where the several plots will eventually turn, in particular, the main plotline.

Poets, write a poem where the turn is particularly obvious. The best form for this is the sonnet, which sets up the problem in the first eight lines, and then comments on the problem as a way of resolution (not, necessarily solution), in the final sestet. Don’t panic. I’m not asking you to write a sonnet, although you certainly may. But, be more conscious of laying out an observation, or a problem, of where the poem turns and how you reach the end.

listening to Yellow River sung by Christie (I’ve always loved this song but didn’t know the group singing it, or that they are British)

Hello, everyone. Ready for an image, or two? I came across one, recently, that I immediately fell in love with, then stumbled on one that offers a contrast in perspective. Hang on, while I get them up.

by Gustavo Fernandes

Say we live in a time where you can order your own pillar of setting. What would you choose to have depicted in your pillar?

Or, if you want to feel cosier about it, how about a jar you can place on a shelf.

What is in your jar?

As always, you can approach this in any way your mind takes you. You can be literal, you can be figurative, you can link to something your brain tosses up. You can use both images, or one. You do not have to mention the images from which your poem arises, but you may. I look forward to seeing what happens.

I will see you Thursday for links and Tuesday for a prose based prompt. It’s NaNoWriMo time.

Hello, all. My apologies for the non-appearance, Thursday. I was in the throes of a cold. You don’t want me anywhere around when that happens. I be a wretched and woebegone person. After several days of pills and rum toddies, I have emerged from the miasma. Let us write. We are borrowing from Diane Lockward, one of my favourite sources for ideas, both from her newsletter and her book The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop.

Early in the book (craft tip #5), Diane talks about finding the right words, no easy thing, if we want to elevate our poetry a notch, or two. Where to go for the right words? The dictionary is an awfully big ocean. A thesaurus can be helpful, but not necessarily poetic. We want words that sound and look and taste. She suggests keeping speciality catalogues, such as flower and seed catalogues, or any of the food catalogues (that come out about this time of year). These lists are also useful for found poetry, but that’s another road.

Aside from the catalogues, Diane tells us that she will Google an item. She gives as her example, blueberries, which took her to the website for the Gierke Blueberry Farm where she found ‘words like cultivars, domesticated, antioxidant and these lovely names of different kinds of blueberries: Rabbiteye, Primadonna, Sapphire, and Snowchaser.’ Aren’t they gorgeous? Another source is Wikipedia, which we can use in the same way as Google, the difference being, we get one article.

What would I like you to do? Grab pen and paper and sit at your machine. Pick a subject. For the purposes of today — unless you already have an idea — pick something simple like spiders, or snakes, or apples. Your objective is to find and use the best words in the best form to give us a poem about your subject. Or, have fun with a list poem.

For an idea of rich word use, Diane suggests some poems to read. Two of my favourites are Gerard Manley Hopkins’ ‘Pied Beauty’ and Sharon Olds’ ‘One Year’.

Go forth and seek words. I’ll await the results. See you Thursday for links and such, and Tuesday for our image prompt. Yes, it is already the end of the month.

listening to George Ezra sing Budapest— talk about fascinating — Wikipedia this child and listen to his voice while staring at his portrait. Surreal.

What? Oh, hi. I got caught up in George. Shall we write? Short and sweet, as a friend said earlier this morning.

I was going to do a borrowed prompt, but I looked out my window just now and changed my mind. Look out a window now. NOW, not in a bit. If you have to walk to one, carry paper and pen. Jot down everything you see. If something, in particular, catches your eye, focus on it, that one thing, and write a poem. Otherwise, write your scene.

Sometimes, we get caught up in the personal and forget about what draws people into a piece of writing, the visual context provided. We need anchors to what we read, and the visual is one of the strongest. If you happen to have an audio, or other sensory thing going on, throw it in, too.

Go to it. Give me your window. The window, by the way, does not have to be part of the poem. Neither do you.

I will see you for links,Thursday (let me know if you have anything you want mentioned); and we’ll go for the borrowed prompt on Tuesday.